1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to peer-to-peer networking environments. In particular, the present invention is directed towards a system and method for adaptively rate limiting traffic in a peer-to-peer network based on network congestion.
2. Description of Background Art
A number of applications exist for exchanging files in a peer-to-peer environment. These peer-to-peer file sharing applications suffer the deserved reputation of bullying other traffic on the network. Due to difficult-to-remedy limitations in Internet congestion-control algorithms, large file downloads tend to build up a backlog inside the network. Backlogs increase delays that are most often noticed by users running interactive applications such as web browsers. The conventional approach to solving this problem has been to rate-limit peer-to-peer traffic at all times, even when no web traffic is present. This leads to an inefficient result, since if no competing traffic such as that from a web browser is present, artificially limiting the rate at which the peer-to-peer application can operate serves no purpose.
In an alternative strategy, peer-to-peer traffic is treated as background traffic. Background traffic defers to higher-priority traffic, but otherwise consumes excess capacity.